Steve got his FIRST COMPUTER a little over a year ago, it is a nicely equipped desktop system that came with Vista and now has Vista and Fedora Linux (dual boot).

Now, I have tried to keep him faithful to Fedora Linux, but, before I could get him to remove Ubuntu Linux from that new laptop, he fell in love.

He only asked me for the security key required to access his wireless router. After that he was on the internet and:

* upgraded Ubuntu 8.10 to 9.04, no loss of personal data ...* installed the codecs needed to play audio and video multimedia* customized his environment

This may not be rocket science to a power user ... but he did this without any help and ENJOYED THE PROCESS.

Now, how many of you could update Windows XP to Windows Vista? Do you think you could:

upgrade easily?

enjoy the process?

preserve all your data?

succeed without any support from friends?

I have done more of my share of upgrades (friends and family) over the years ... and I have never, ever seen a Windows upgrade that was easy or fun. I have seen more than my share that resulted in loss of data (thank God for backups) and crippled machines.

I will say this, installing and using Ubuntu is easy enough to be FUN.

In closing, if you do decide to upgrade from XP to Vista, and you need help, call:

"If your computer is slow, it is probably becauseyou wore it out and need a new one".

If a car started running like crap after a 6 months of service, nobody would just assume it was worn out. They would be demanding that it be repaired, for free if it was still under warranty. The manufacturer would be financially on the ropes after doing that to EVERY CUSTOMER THEY SERVED FOR A FEW YEARS.

But we, as consumers, have been led to believe that slow computers just need to be replaced. It is the best marketing scam of the century. Computer software companies are not to be held responsible for anything, EVEN CRAPPY SOFTWARE THAT IS INSECURE.

System slow? I guess I just wore it out. What a JOKE.

This may come as a surprise, but, if a computer is "worn out", it won't be SLOW, it will be DEAD.

I have computers that are over 10 years old, still in service, still just as fast as the day they were purchased.

Now lightning strikes have FRIED a couple of my computers over the years, but they were not slow, they were DEAD.